Gas fired cooking ranges have achieved wide acceptance in both residential and commercial kitchens. A known design for gas fired cook tops in ranges includes separate burner assemblies for each cooking location, with each burner assembly including a venturi and a burner head having gas-emitting orifices. A grate or other surface is often positioned above the burner head and venturi to provide a surface for pots, pans, other cooking vessels, or food products.
Factors such as flame intensity and efficiency, burner assembly cleanability, and fuel consumption efficiency are important to both residential and commercial installations. The time required for completing a food course, including initial preparation time for heating and actual cooking time, can be reduced by efficient burner performance and heat transfer to the cooking vessel atop the burner.
This arrangement is traditionally considered inefficient as the system heats the air around the grate, eventually transferring heat to the pot, pan, or food product placed thereon. A more efficient system is that described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,726,967, that describes a gas-fed infrared burner. Gas-fed infrared burners are more efficient than similar open-top gas-fired burners, and therefore their use reduces energy consumption while improving cooking times.
An infrared radiant burner stovetop assembly is an expensive replacement for an open-top gas burner and may require substantial modification of the kitchen, stovetop, and cooking arrangement.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an improved method and apparatus for replacing an open-top gas burner arrangement with an infrared radiant burner arrangement.